Netflix Announces Castlevania Animated Series

The first season of a Castlevania animated series will be coming to Netflix this year, the streaming service announced today. As part of its slate of new premiere date reveals, Netflix also revealed Castlevania Season 1, Part 1 will be arriving this year, though no specific date was revealed. Netflix's website lists the series as a four-part season, with each episode running for approximately 30 minutes.According to Netflix's official description of the series, Castlevania will focus on the game franchise's Belmont clan, as it follows "the last surviving member of the disgraced Belmont clan, trying to save Eastern Europe from extinction at the hand of Vlad Dracula Tepe himself."

IGN spoke with producer Adi Shankar following the announcement, and he confirmed that the show will indeed be an adaptation of Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, but could not give further plot details at this time."This is very much Castlevania done in the vein of Game of Thrones," Shankar said of the project, noting that Warren Ellis, who wrote the series and is on board as a producer, "added so much depth to the material." Dracula's Curse followed Trevor Belmont as he fought to stop Dracula from ravaging Europe in the 1400's. Those fighting with him included Alucard, Dracula's son.

"[The series is] going to be R-rated as ****," Shankar said of the series' level of violence, as many entries in Konami's game series were rated M for mature due to blood and violence. Shankar's discussion of the series' more adult aims reconfirms a 2015 interview in which he said the show would be "America's first animated series for adults." At the time, Shankar, who has produced Dredd, The Grey, and more, said Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and Young Justice were among the series inspiring the Castlevania series' art design.

Speaking to whether the franchise is aimed at the franchise's longtime fans or newcomers to the material, Shankar discussed his high hopes for the project, saying "this is going to be the best ****ing video game adaptation we've had to date."